“If you find the successor to Mucianus in the Dei or his heir, Athanasius, you will find the man who truly rules the Dei today — or will tomorrow. The true Chiron. The linchpin of the Dei. If he is removed, the Dei falls apart. If he is not removed, you can remove Domitian but the Dei will continue, perhaps stronger than ever.”
“And you really think I might find him at this Harvest party Dovilin is throwing?”
“I think you might recognize a face from Rome that neither I nor Gabrielle nor anybody in the churches of Asia Minor would,” Cerberus said.
Athanasius immediately thought of Senator Celsus, who was his strongest link to this Mucianus successor. He could have been the one who gave the order to kill Caelus, although Athanasius could not reason why.
Cerberus said, “Getting into this banquet will be a lot easier than circumventing the Praetorian at the Palace of the Flavians.”
“It’s getting out I’m worried about,” Athanasius said. “I still don’t know how.”
Cerberus said nothing as Athanasius watched Gabrielle walk around the far perimeter of the cavern, listening.
“Who is Gabrielle, Cerberus?” Athanasius said in a low voice, leaning toward the old man. “What is she to you?”
“Gabrielle’s grandmother was a maidservant spoil of war for Vespasian during the Judean War. When she became pregnant, she hid her condition for as long as possible but was found out and killed. But the baby, Gabrielle’s mother, was delivered. I took care of her until she married. Her husband died, however, and then she died giving birth to Gabrielle. I have watched her ever since, but lost her for a year when the Minotaur men took her and sent her off to work the temples and pleasure barges. She jumped a ship and came back to help me and those who would stand firm in the spirit of the Lord and not by might or power.”
Athanasius felt the hair on the back of his neck rise at this revelation, and a chill ran down his spine. Then he remembered Cleo’s story aboard the Sea Nymph: Gabrielle was the girl who got away.
“She’s a Flavian!” he told Cerberus, who nodded. “And she doesn’t even know it, does she?”
“No.”
“But the Dovilins do, don’t they? And hate her for it.”
Cerberus didn’t answer him, cocking his head. “They’re coming. “
“Who is coming?”
“Dovilin’s men. And they’ll want blood.”
“Cerberus!” shouted Gabrielle, running toward them. “Two groups from two separate tunnels!”
“Go out the tunnel behind me, Gabrielle. You must take the Angel’s Pass if you are to escape.”
“The Angel’s Pass?” she repeated. “We are better off fighting here.”
“Take her,” Cerberus told Athanasius. “I will fight.”
“You’ll die!” Gabrielle said as men in Minotaur masks burst into the cavern aiming crossbows.
Athanasius nodded at Cerberus, who lifted a blanket to reveal his own unusual crossbow with arrows dipped in mud. Athanasius understood and grabbed Gabrielle. “You’ll see him on the other side of life soon enough. Let’s go!”
He pushed her into the mouth of the tunnel and looked back to see the lame old man calmly take his oil lamp and touch it to the floor. Walls of flame suddenly rose along lines of the flammable mud drawn across the floor.
“Cerberus!” Gabrielle cried, reaching toward the cavern while Athanasius pulled her back.
Then the old man raised his crossbow and released an arrow that struck the ceiling. Even from the tunnel Athanasius could hear the dome of the cavern crackle, and suddenly the whole thing caved, burying Cerberus and the Minotaur men and sending plumes of dust into the tunnel.
“Hold your breath!” he shouted, pushing her down the tunnel, running as fast they could as flaming rocks fell behind them like stars from the sky.
Leaving the collapsed cavern of death behind them, Athanasius and Gabrielle raced across a rock bridge spanning a wide abyss and arrived at two passageways. One was tall and narrow, the other short and wide.
“Which way to this Angel’s Pass?” he asked her.
Her face looked vacant, confused, as if she couldn’t accept that Cerberus was gone, her life at the vineyard gone, everything gone.
“Gabrielle!”
She came to life again and looked at the passageways. Then she put her hand to the rock, feeling it. “The short one. I feel a breeze. The Angel’s Breath. It leads to Angel’s Pass. We have to follow it all the way out. If we stray, we’re lost.”
They crawled through the tight passage, and Athanasius felt like he was back in the lagar with Vibius putting the screw press to him. The tunnel began to twist and turn, narrowing further as the breeze turned into a loud whistle.
“What is it?” Athanasius asked her.
“I hear water. We’re close.”
Moments later they crawled out into in the light of day, collapsing onto the rocks outside and allowing the cool water of the babbling brook to sooth their scratched and bruised legs.
Gabrielle was shaking in tears.
Athanasius put his arms around her and held her tight, hiding his horror at the touch of her back, where he could feel the deep gashes and welts from her days in the ships and cities. She had come back to this place, but there was no place for her here anymore.
“I need your help, Gabrielle.”
She turned on him, her dark eyes flashing passion, and pounded him on his chest. “Haven’t you done enough? Vibius is dead! Cerberus is dead! You were supposed to expose the Dei to the Church, not expose the Church to the Dei!”
“I need you to help me get into the Harvest Banquet in two days.”
She stared at him through her tear-stained eyes. “So you can kill more?”
“So I can find the Dei’s true link to Rome, this Mucianus successor. I know he or one of his representatives will be there. Until we know who runs the Dei in Rome, the church there and all the churches here in Asia Minor are in danger. The apostle John knows this, Polycarp in Ephesus knows it too, and so did Cerberus. The church here can’t go back to living in holes and pretending that this is not so.”
“I’ll help you,” she said through streaks of tears, “for the sake of the Church. But if you ask me, I think you’re the third head of the Dei.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But the way death surrounds you, it might as well be.”
V
Once again Helena had been summoned to join Caesar for dinner at the palace. She feared the worst, expecting to find the head of her beloved Athanasius served up for them on a silver platter. When she arrived at the private dining room, however, she discovered the death they were to celebrate was that of Caesar’s latest astrologer, Ascletario. And Domitian was nowhere to greet her, only an ashen Latinus.
“What happened?” she asked the comic.
“The emperor ordered Ascletario to be burned alive today,” Latinus told her. “As he was not feeling well, he sent me over to enjoy the entertainment for myself. Everything was in order for the performance. There was a small crowd, the body was bound and laid upon the pyre, and the fire kindled. It was all hugely predictable, I thought, when suddenly there arose a dread storm of wind and rain, which drove all the spectators away and extinguished the fire.”
A bad omen, to be sure, Helena thought, but to ruin dinner for Domitian? “So that was it?”
“No!” said Latinus. “His body was still on the pyre when a pack of passing dogs ran out and tore it to pieces! It was just as Ascletario had predicted!”
Helena covered her mouth. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Latinus nodded. “I know! It was something out of one of Athanasius’s plays.”
It was! she thought. It was a sign!